jm1fd

Thanks for the link it was an interesting read, but I was hoping for something a little less weather technical and a little more computer technical.

Is there a web site that gives a technical summary of all these different models such as when they were developed, what sorts of parameters they're initialized with, how long the runs take, what sort of hardware they're run on, what languages they're built in, etc?

The latest track is not looking good for Texas at this point, but we're still ~1 week away from landfall. Things can change.

Standardized coding is a step in the right direction, but doesn't even come close to simplifying things. As you've said there are a gazillion different plans from any one insurer, and myriad different requirements for determining if something is covered or not, what the copay is, etc. Moreover, most insurers don't even have online systems for providers to query to determine what is or is not covered, and what the copay might be. They have to pick up the phone and call the insurance company and ask a human, and a lot of times they'll get different answers depending on who they talk to. If the insurers do happen to have an online system for this then the interface requirements are different for every company, and usually the information isn't 100% up to date. In this day and age that is inexcusable.

The insurance companies may be wonderfully efficient but the hospitals and doctor's offices who deal with these companies are forced to waste huge amounts of time and money conforming to differing requirements of HUNDREDS of different insurance carriers. It wouldn't be a bad idea for the government to step in and make all the insurance carriers and all the providers adopt a single standard. That would eliminate a lot of waste right there.

That's too bad that you can't/won't flip them the bird and cancel ALL your ComCrap services.

It is the right decision. I got rid of ComCrap and went with DSL and a plain 'ol antenna for HDTV. I don't regret it one bit. I'm saving $100/month, my upload speeds are faster, the download speeds are plenty fast at 3Mb/sec, and my TV needs are met with the antenna and streaming video online.

Bittorrent is a protocol not a service. Call Amazon's Unbox, and Netflix's Watch Now service whatever you like, but they are essentially VOD services. Now you're just making crap up. Cite a credible source for that pearl of wisdom. Of course what really matters is how many bits COMCAST thinks there is in a byte, and how they define a gigabyte. That's like saying $10/gallon gas won't stop people from driving. It will stop the majority of users from using high bandwidth offerings. Everything I've read indicates that ComCrap is going to warn folks on the first overage and then ban them for a year after the second overage. Where did you get this info about paying more for extra volume? ComCrap isn't going to invest the money collected in fees in more infrastructure until they just absolutely have wrung every last drop of performance out of the current infrastructure and have NO other choice. When was consumer level broadband sold by the hour? I can remember dialup services such as AOL and Compuserv being sold by the hour, but never consumer level broadband.

It won't impact streaming video users since I'm not aware of any services that are streaming HD video. But people who want to download an HD movie over the course of a few hours and then watch it will be impacted. 13 GB is not 13,000,000,000 bytes. It is 13,958,643,712 bytes. Moreover there are 8 bits in a byte, not 10 as you have shown above. Amazon has confirmed that they will be rolling out HD content to their Unbox offerings. I suspect Netflix is right on their heels with its Watch Now service. Providers of high bandwidth content can't innovate if nobody can download the content because of caps. It is evil because the service has always been sold as unlimited in order to attract more customers. Now that they're actually being taken up on their offer of unlimited they're rewriting the rules.

Duh. Of course it is a luxury and not a necessity. The same can be said for electricity, gas, and running water. Of course when it came down to actually going to the moon it required MASSIVE amounts of computing power. If computing technology back then was equivalent to what we have nowadays the Apollo program could've been accomplished in a shorter timeframe using fewer resources. WTF? Cable TV is going a bit far since you can get numerous stations for free with an antenna.

Sometimes you just don't have a choice if you want decent prices and speeds...it is either cable or satellite with horrendously low upload speeds, not much higher download speeds, crazy bad latency, and super high costs. I, personally, believe that in this day and age internet infrastructure should be treated as a basic utility requirement just like gas, water, and electricity.

I come up with 29.6 Mb/sec, but anywho. H.264 encoded Blu-Ray rips can be had all over the place. Just because it isn't quite mainstream yet doesn't mean it should be ignored, and it damn sure doesn't mean that we should idly sit by while the cable company stifles innovation, progress, and competition in the name of profits.

An hour of HD video is ~13 GB. 19 hours and you've blown right through your cap.

Plain and simple: They're targeting people who are using the internet to watch movies and TV on demand. It is a threat to their biggest revenue stream and they're trying to put the stop to it before it gets beyond their control.

Thank you for that well reasoned, factually supported argument.

This couple, in buying a McVictorian, is helping to destroy the very essence of what draws people (and probably drew them in as well) to the area in the first place.

What about DSL? They're now allowing you to get DSL without having to pay for a phone line....quite handy. I'm quite happy with my DSL service and even happier with my bill...HALF what it was with ComCrap.

Hell of a performance, hell of a moment....made me all verklempt last night.

You should also look into having icynene foam sprayed on the underside of the roof to turn the attic into conditioned space....expensive but I can see how it could be worth it. Of course, for the purposes of efficiency, what's more important than insulation is having a properly installed A/C unit with a high EER (not SEER) and well sealed and insulated ducts.

How about a nice white marble countertop with some veins of grey in it to help tie it in with the rest of the grey in the room?

For the permanent stuff (mainly the tile) choose nice materials that will work with a variety of styles. If you just have to have the style of the moment, then do it through the use of paint and accessories which are easily and inexpensively changed when they fall out of vogue.

That would probably be a good idea seeing as how homebuilders typically don't produce anything even remotely approaching architectural excellence.

If you're going to do 1930s then you need to do 1930s ALL THE WAY. That means a white marble top on the vanity and new shaker style doors. You do realize that since the house wasn't built in the 1930s that this is going to look outdated and just WRONG 10 years down the road, right?

Yes...they made some reliable equipment back in the day but the unreliability of the Neptune line put them in VERY poor financial shape leading to their eventual takeover by none other than WHIRLPOOL. That's right....WHIRLPOOL owns Maytag. A flood? No. Maybe a trickle. The water level in every front loader I've ever seen barely comes up to the bottom of the door opening.

The Neptune front loaders had (and may still have) MAJOR, MAJOR problems.